Evaluation Task 5- How did you attract/address your audience?

Evaluation Question 5 (Script)- How did you attract/address your audience?

How did you attract/address your audience?

Our opening sequence offers many things to the audience. For example, because our opening sequence is a thriller, it carries the typical thriller conventions. These key conventions being, suspense, low lighting, some form of action/violence, the typical storyline about a battle between and antagonist and protagonist. We used all of these conventions in our opening sequence, this is because we know that these conventions elicit successful responses and therefore it pleases the audience. The responses being feelings of suspense, fright in the audience. 

To break it up more, through the use of the genre, setting, narrative, media representation, music, editing and titles, we can investigate how we attracted the audience in more detail. The genre of the opening   we have created is thriller. It could be narrowed down to a sub-genre of an action thriller. Examples of action thriller films are Léon: The Professional, The Bourne Series, The Dark Knight. This includes use of violence and action but still retain the element of suspense which gives it the thriller feel. Because of how successful these films were we were able to predict the audience would enjoy watching the content we would produce. The setting we chose for our sequence also contributes to the appeal of our target audience. We chose to set our film in a regular house. The house we used was also quite homely, it could potentially be a family house. For the set target audience I discovered (boys and girls aged 15-20), 

they could relate the house used as the setting back to their own life. Usually during this age, you could assume that they would recently or currently be living with their parents or in a homely environment. This makes the audience want to watch it more if they feel like it could happen to them. In terms of the narrative, the story and characters may attracted audience because of the non-conventional story line. This movie breaks the norm for gender and age. Gender, being that it is the woman who is powerful and age that most movies are centred around very young people especially in modern cinema. Because it breaks the norm people are more likely  to take interest in something they don't usually see. For media representation, the social groups that I'm appealing to are mostly Western people aged 15+ who like thriller movies. 

We tried to appeal to them by, in addition to having the conventional elements of thriller, we casted white actors to play a heterosexual couple, in a typical Western house. This is the most common representation of social group that would typically be seen in Western cinema. The reason for this is because this is seen as the “majority” in society and it can easily be related back to the audience. For music, we created our own on Logic X Pro. The style of the music is an instrumental sound track. We created it specifically for the film so it has a suspenseful feeling. The sound track is on the whole of the film, from the very beginning, but fades in very slowly towards so it is audible from about the half way point where the suspense starts building. When we added the titles, we made up the production company’s name which was just out initials, we added our names for editing and sound and then actors names as the came into the scene. Regarding editing, the lengths of our shots are quite short and the cutting is quite fast, in comparison to general film editing although compared to thriller editing it is quite slow. We wanted to find a simple pace for our film as we didn't want to make it too static which too many cuts. For effects we used Adobe After effects for the muzzle flash, for the colour correction we used the colour effects in Adobe Premiere Pro. 

To conclude, we have used a variety of different techniques to attract our audience to the film. The most prominent one being that we want the audience to relate to the film that we have created. We have also used some typical conventions of the thriller genre to attract people who enjoy thrillers. But we did try to keep it original by changing some of the stereotypical conventions you would expect from the characters. 

Evaluation Task 4 (Part 2)- Who would be the audience for your media product?

From my survey I can conclude that my target audience are Boys and Girls of 15-20. From this video it tells you briefly the kind of things that they enjoy. They enjoy relaxing, American movies such as Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Rocky, Men in Black, Up. They also enjoy popular new music artists such as Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Skepta. In addition to TV programs, like The Walking Dead, Skins, Awkward, The Simpsons. The target audiences can be applied to our thriller because we now know the age and gender group that the target audience fit under, therefore we can make assumptions about what they like. We then tailor our thriller sequence to their likes. This makes the thriller have a higher rate of success as it suits the target audience.

Evaluation Task 4 (Part 1)- Who would be the audience for your media product?

Evaluation Task 3- What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?

Evaluation Question 3 from Victoria Bird

Evaluation Question 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation Question 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media project represented several social groups. Although the main focus of representation was definitely gender.

The gender representation in my sequence is very important. One of the main motives of our film was to have a non-conventional female lead role. We wanted to show the woman using violence, intelligence and tricks to fool the male lead. It shows the woman in a very powerful light and the man in a weaker position which is against the stereotype in traditional films. 

The first element of mise-en-scene is the setting. The sequence is set in a  household. It has a very homely feel, a family household. From the scene, we can tell that they have been together for a while. The first half shows the wife in the kitchen. This is very typical stereotype for a woman. They are usually shown in the kitchen either cooking or cleaning and doing domestic tasks. We wanted to show this to start off with as, the woman eventually kills her husband which is non-conventional. We did it to show contrast. The second thing is the props. Throughout the whole of the sequence the woman is the one holding the weapons. During the first bit, she is using a knife and in the second section she pulls out a gun. This is a non-conventional stereotype of a woman because women are seen to be more weak and sensitive. Usually when weapons are used in film, they would be handled by the man. The majority of the mise-en-scene in our sequence is against the typical stereotypes of gender. The lighting and costume, however, shows different. The lighting first, shows the woman in a lit space. The white light represents purity and innocence, this is intentional because we want our audience to think of the woman as a normal, innocent housewife to start off with rather than an assassin. When the friend arrives, there is a very dark light which represents death and evil. This foreshadows the events that are about to unravel and shows the man as dangerous. For the costume, the woman is wearing a white dressing gown, she has her hair tied back. The two men are wearing suits. This represents the woman and men in a conventional stereotypical. The dark coloured suits represent power and work which the role of the male conventionally includes. The white dressing gown infers that she is a stereotypical ‘house wife’. 

The camera angles used our sequence do reflect the gender, mostly in a non conventional way. There are three main shots which that use camera angles to reflect gender. The first shot of a sequence is a shot of Adam (male lead) asleep. The camera is placed right above him, showing the audience a high camera angle. The audience is therefore looking down on Adam and this already establishes a submissive role from the first shot. This is also emphasised by him sleeping and in a vulnerable state. The male is always usually shown from a low angle as it establishes dominance and power. Next few scenes are using eye line level shots as it is a conversation and we want to make the audience feel as though they are right in the middle of it. The next camera angle is of the door when the doorbell rings, this is shot from a very low camera angle to show power when Dave (friend) arrives. The camera is level with the floor, making Dave look very large and powerful, which his character is supposed to portray. This is the polar opposite of what Adam is portrayed as at the very beginning and it is the archetype of what a man is in a film. Very tough, dark, mysterious, emotionless. This creates good contrast between the male characters. The third shot is of Clare, which is a low angle as well. In the shot before Clare kills Adam, there is a low angle shot of her. The low angles make the audience feel smaller and the character on the screen appear higher than we are. It gives the character power and authority. This is a subversion of a stereotype as the woman isn't supposed to have authority or power. It also foreshadows how Clare is going to kill Adam as the camera angle deduces that authority. 

The editing, again, shows the woman in a more powerful position. When the main focus of the shot is Adam, the pace of the cutting is rather slow. As the focus falls on Clare the pace becomes slightly faster and eventually gets really quick. An example of this is when she stabs the knife in the chopping board, that cut is really quick, it shows that she is powerful and serious, a non conventional representation of a woman. 

The diegetic sound in our sequence represents the woman in a non-convectional manner. We made the sound that the weapons make pleonastic, meaning every time she used a weapon the sound of the weapon would be louder than it would be heard in the natural world. The first time this happens is the sound of the knife against the board. We increased the gain on the audio tracks so it has a larger impact on the audience. Also the non-diegetic sound that builds up to that clip which helps build anticipation. This also happens with the gun shot, the sound of the gun is really loud which shocks the audience. All of these sounds are produced by Clare, the lead female character. This is against the stereotype because women are supposed to be quiet, polite and sweet, not loud and aggressive which is exactly what the sound does. In addition to this, Adam and Dave are quite calm and not very aggressive in their tone of voice. This is very subverting against the stereotypical representations of men and women. 

Overall, the majority of the sequence is challenging the stereotypical representations of the genders. It’s good to have this because it makes the film less cliche. We also intended to have a powerful female lead because we thought that it would make the the film more interesting. Traditionally, in mainstream media, we don't see much subversion of stereotypes which is why we decided to do it. 

Evaluation Question 1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In this video I compare my sequence to several other media products, the main ones being "Wanted" and "Lara Croft Tomb Raider Legend". 

Post Production- Editing

Editing is the stage in the post production process where the raw, un-cut film and audio is organised to construct the final film. This is a vital part to the process as there would be no film to watch with separate images not put together. The programs that we are editing the majority of the film on is Adobe Premiere Pro for the cut and Logic X Pro for the sound. 

To start of the process we had to have a brief plan of how we were going to structure the editing process, we decided that we were going to make several basic cuts such as picture cut first, duplicated them, and then start working on the duplicate cuts. This structures the work so if we wish to go back and do things again, we have the first rough picture cut to go back to rather than just having one cut of everything together and not being go back without deleting. This gives the project stages and opens the door to more creativity. In terms of the dynamics of our group, we tried to be as even as possible when sharing out the work. We took turns at having the main control of the computer, but whenever that one person was editing, we would all be present and working together as a team. We did this when doing the main bit of the editing, when it came to specific things, we decided to split up the task more and work more individually. For example, I started working on the sound and music of the film, Matt worked on the colour editing and Kami on the titles. During the first session, we took the already improved rushes and started sorting through the raw footage to get a grasp of what we recorded. It was the first time we had watched the footage back so the majority of the lesson was familiarising the clips and experimenting with how we could start building our film. 

Then in the second and third sessions we started putting the picture together. The tools we used for the majority of the basic picture editing was cut and crop. We had to crop some of the clips where we used the slider as you could see the head of the slider. We also had to crop a clip where you could see reflections of Kami’s and Matt’s face in the glass door. To cut we used the blade tool to cut and edit clips in the timeline. Because of these tools, we were able to experiment with e different variations of the clips and decide which one was better for shot composition. Adobe Premiere Pro helped us to order the shots because the timeline lays out all of the clips clearly. This helped us to master continuity. We also used sound bridges of the dialogue when cutting through clips of a conversation. Another sound bridge we used was the non-diegetic sound running behind the gaps in the clips. We do this to build tension and for continuity. We have also used eye line match during the conversation to also aid the continuity. 

Although for sound, it doesn't offer much as it is a film program. This meant that I had to take the sound out of Adobe and transfer it into Logic Pro X.

In Logic I could then edit the sound properly in accordance to the music I was creating for the sequence. The sounds I'm using for the music are sounds that are provided by Logic, but I have also constructed my own custom sounds using my Akai MPK Mini MK2 Midi keyboard. I have also pulled samples from freeosound.org, a copyright free website where you can find different sample sounds. The sound I'm creating includes mostly non-diegetic background music, but I have also added a few tracks in there to create diegetic sound. For example, there are sounds of dogs barking and sounds of the environment. 

The whole editing process was really good because it helped me to learn more about how a film is put together. We hadn't had much experience with editing before this project, except for the preliminary task so it. I think its the best way to learn, to be given a practical task to do so you learn as you’re doing the editing. It has helped me to develop my skills with using the software, but also I know more about how films are put together and the elements that make a film good. The outcomes of our film aren't as good as I hoped they would be, but it was my first time making a proper film so it is all a learning process for me. 

Some pictures of the process:

The StoryBoard

This story board was drawn by Matt, this is a vague representation of some of the different sections of our film.

The Script

This is the script we wrote for the actors to use, this one, compared to the other pre production documents, is less flexible. Hopefully the actors will be able to stick to the script for continuity purposes. It will make the editing process a lot easier if they said the same thing every time they did the scene.

The Shot List

This is a basic shot list of the shots we were considering to use in our thriller sequence. Obviously this is completely flexible and will probably be changed as we see fit.